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Re: Any sign of supply chain returning to normal? [ In reply to ]
On Fri, 20 May 2022 at 11:21, Mark Tinka <mark@tinka.africa> wrote:

> I can't fathom why a box like that has already been EoL'ed. It isn't long in the tooth, and still has plenty of bite in it. But, we also need to use common sense, and for us, swapping it out just to maintain "support" isn't worth the cash. There are options for cold sparing...

That's engineering, understanding what risks and compromises are worth
carrying. If you do it by the book, you're not even needed, just
0-rate AS/PS services to your RFP and the vendor is happy to do it by
the book for you.
And fully agreed, in many cases it makes sense to run boxes to the
ground until they physically stop working. You just need to figure out
how to handle the MTTR well.

--
++ytti
Re: Any sign of supply chain returning to normal? [ In reply to ]
On 5/20/22 10:24, Saku Ytti wrote:

> That's engineering, understanding what risks and compromises are worth
> carrying. If you do it by the book, you're not even needed, just
> 0-rate AS/PS services to your RFP and the vendor is happy to do it by
> the book for you.
> And fully agreed, in many cases it makes sense to run boxes to the
> ground until they physically stop working. You just need to figure out
> how to handle the MTTR well.

We are going to need more 100Gbps data centre switching in other PoP's
in the coming months, and we like the 7508E for this, even if Arista
have EoL'ed it. So for those builds, we'll grab them off the open
market, and cold spare with a full chassis in copy. Way cheaper than
when we bought them from Arista, even with the ongoing mark-up on the
pre-owned space.

Arista are also not developing anymore new or maintenance code for the
supervisor that runs on the 7508E, but we are fine with that because
this is not an Internet-facing box, and is only doing Layer 2 with
features that will never change (802.1Q and LACP is about as advanced as
it gets, for us).

Mark.
Re: Any sign of supply chain returning to normal? [ In reply to ]
On Fri May 20, 2022 at 10:15:14am +0200, Mark Tinka wrote:
> We suddenly got told that they are now EoS/EoL some time back (I probably
> should have done a better job tracking this, but I tend to rely on vendor
> notifications for that based on my Cisco/Juniper experience).

I've heard that some vendors are prematurely EoS/EoL'ing kit as a result of
the silicon shortages - and redesigning kit to use silicon that's easier to
get hold of.

Simon
Re: Any sign of supply chain returning to normal? [ In reply to ]
Simon,

That is correct in most cases. Fabs are changing and the time needed to manufacture is limited and most vendors are opt’ing to EoL/EoS gear early to move to newer tech and cannot risk the time to manufacture older silicon and spares that could be used for newer silicon.

On Fri, May 20, 2022, at 07:44, Simon Lockhart wrote:
> On Fri May 20, 2022 at 10:15:14am +0200, Mark Tinka wrote:
> > We suddenly got told that they are now EoS/EoL some time back (I probably
> > should have done a better job tracking this, but I tend to rely on vendor
> > notifications for that based on my Cisco/Juniper experience).
>
> I've heard that some vendors are prematurely EoS/EoL'ing kit as a result of
> the silicon shortages - and redesigning kit to use silicon that's easier to
> get hold of.
>
> Simon
>

----
Jason
Re: Any sign of supply chain returning to normal? [ In reply to ]
On 5/20/22 14:44, Simon Lockhart wrote:

> I've heard that some vendors are prematurely EoS/EoL'ing kit as a result of
> the silicon shortages - and redesigning kit to use silicon that's easier to
> get hold of.

This was my suspicion, because we started using this box in 2017. I
can't remember when it launched, but I'd imagine a year or two earlier.

We have boxes from 2014 with other vendors still in service and fully
supported. So we were not going to be bullied into new hardware we
didn't need.

Mark.

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